There is no correct usage, for the reasons I described above. It's a specious discoursive elision designed to equate acceptance of an evidentially supported scientific theory with acceptance of fuckwitted, unsupported nonsense.

I tend to go with 'accepter of reality', and leave them to play with their turds.

hackenslash wrote:There is no correct usage, for the reasons I described above. It's a specious discoursive elision designed to equate acceptance of an evidentially supported scientific theory with acceptance of fuckwitted, unsupported nonsense.

I tend to go with 'accepter of reality', and leave them to play with their turds.

I disagree, and can point to various eminent evolutionary biologists who do too (Dawkins and Gould spring to mind). Just because your standard creotard chooses to butcher a term doesn't make it valueless. They do that all the time to terms like atheist and agnostic too.

Pope Rat: "Exclusion of God, religion and virtue from public life leads ultimately to a truncated vision of man and of society and thus a reductive vision of a person and his destiny."

Yes, we've had this discussion before, and you simply won't convince me. There are all sorts of linguistic reasons why the term has no value, and they've been pointed out. You also don't need to tell me about Dawkins' use of the word, as I've berated him on his own forum for it. There is no 'ism' in the acceptance of evidentially supported hard science, because there's no dogma or doctrine involved. That's all there is to it. The word is misleading, dishonest, fuckwitted, and entirely without value. More importantly, it pisses me right off, and even more so when reasonable people attempt to use it in a manner that might seem appropriate, because there is no manner that is appropriate.

The only remotely plausible arguument I've heard for its use is that we should reclaim it and pull the teeth of the cretinists, but that argument simply isn't convincing, not least because it addresses none of the above objections.

How in hell is it misleading? It identifies a person who accepts evolutionary theory. It says fuck all about why they do so. They could accept evolution because they once saw a mouse that looked like a rabbit. I don't much care, I simply need a term to identify people who accept evolution and separate them from people who don't.

I've seen it said that 44% of the US don't accept evolution. Are you going to argue that an almost 50:50 split of a population of a country with a population of 250 million on acceptance of a given idea isn't worthy of a word to identify them? I've challenged people to come up with something better, I started a thread on it. Nobody has. People invariable use "crtical thinker" or "science accepter", and it's all bullshit because it doesn't identify the group in question.

I maintain that a word is required to differentiate those who accept from those who don't since there is no massive majority either way. You can't equate it with acceptance of gravity, since the percentage of people disputing gravity is so miniscule as to be dismissed. But in a community where we constantly butt heads with people who don't accept evolution, I need a word for those that do. I have need of it, I know I do, because if I sit down and try to identify that group I keep coming up with "those that accept evolution", and I'd rather have a single word.

So yes, it's a word I use, it's a word we have argued about before, and I'll continue argue that the only reason anyone dislikes it is because creotards have bastardised it. And you know what, I don't care if they have, because I can and do define an evolutionist as a person who accepts evolutionary theory, and I don't care why they do it.

Pope Rat: "Exclusion of God, religion and virtue from public life leads ultimately to a truncated vision of man and of society and thus a reductive vision of a person and his destiny."

I do understand your point, I just think it's redundant, in the way that 'gravitationist', or atomist'; would be. That, coupled with the hijacking of it by the credulous, means that it's nigh-on useless.

Indeed. I can accept that the word has some use, but it opens up a can of worms, and that forms the majority of my objection to it, along with the implication of some sort of dogmatic adherence to something.

Postby Calilasseia ,» Mon Nov 02, 2009 9:02 pmIn order to deal with several of the canards we see resurrected here with tedious regularity at source, I thought it apposite to launch this topic. Where appropriate canards can be dealt with in one spot, so that future propagandists for reality-denial doctrines arising from mythological blind assertion have no excuse for resurrecting them yet again.

So, here goes with the list of canards to avoid when posting here.

[1] Parroting blind assertions does not constitute "evidence".

Let's make this explicit, just so that even the most casual of observers of this thread cannot avoid having noticed it.

Mythology (and I don't care how precious you consider your "holy books" to be, that is what they contain - mythology) merely erects unsupported blind assertions about the world, and presents those blind assertions as if they constituted "axioms" about the world, to be regarded uncritically as eternally true, and never to be questioned. Well, those who wish to adopt this view will find that they are given short shrift here. Because one of the fundamental rules of proper discourse is that whenever an assertion is erected, no one is obliged to regard it as valid unless proper, critically robust supporting evidence is provided for that assertion. Which means independent corroboration from an outside source, or a direct, methodologically rigorous, repeatable empirical demonstration of the validity of that assertion. Without this, any blind assertions, particularly those erected from mythology or mythology-based doctrines, can be dismissed in the same casual manner in which they are tossed into the thread. Failure to provide proper evidential support for blind assertions will result in a poster being regarded as an inconsequential lightweight. Just because you think that mythological blind assertions constitute "axioms" about the world doesn't mean that everyone else does, and you'll soon discover the hard way how much firepower is directed toward those who come here expecting the rest of the forum to genuflect before said blind assertions uncritically. Plus, in the case of supernaturalist blind assertions, parroting these and expecting everyone else to accept them uncritically as established fact in the same way that you did, constitutes preaching, and is a violation of forum rules. Learn quickly to qualify assertions properly when erecting them, unless you wish to be regarded as tediously sanctimonious, boring, and boorishly ill-educated into the bargain.

Oh, and while we're at it, don't bother trying to assert that your favourite invisible magic man is "necessary" for the biosphere or some other observed entity, until you can provide proper, critically robust evidential support for the postulate that your magic man actually exists. Given that 300 years of continuous scientific endeavour has established that the universe is not only comprehensible without needing magic, but is thus comprehensible in precise quantitative terms, you will be well advised to devote some serious time to providing methodologically rigorous support for all assertions concerning magic supernatural entities, because without it, you're fucked from the start.

[2] Science is NOT a branch of apologetics.

Science is as far removed from apologetics as it is possible to be. Science exists to subject erected postulates to empirical test with respect to whether or not those postulates are in accord with observational reality. As a consequence, science is in the business of testing assertions and presuppositions to destruction, Those that fail the requisite tests are discarded. Science modifies its theories to fit reality. Apologetics, on the other hand, consists of erecting convoluted semantic fabrications for the purpose of trying to prop up presuppositions and blind assertions, involves NO empirical testing, and seeks to force-fit reality to the aforementioned presuppositions and blind assertions. Therefore, treating science as if it constitutes a branch of apologetics is dishonest, and those who engage in this pursuit will be regarded with due scorn and derision.

Among the more duplicitous examples of such dishonesty, all too frequently seen here in the past, is quote mining of scientific papers or scientific publications. There are entire websites devoted to the exposure of this particular brand of dishonesty, and anyone making the mistake of erecting quote mines here will have their buttocks handed to them in a sling.

[3]The "assumptions" canard.

This is a frequent favourite with creationists, and usually erected for the purpose of attempting to hand-wave away valid science when it happens not to genuflect before their ideological presuppositions. As I have stated in [2] above, science is in the business of testing assumptions and presuppositions to destruction. As an example of destroying creationist apologetics with respect to this canard, I point interested readers to this post, where I destroyed the lies of the laughably named "Answers in Genesis" with respect to their assertion that 14C dating was based upon "assumptions". I've also trashed this canard in detail with respect to radionuclide dating as a whole, so don't even try to go down that road. Likewise, if you try to erect this canard with respect to other valid scientific theories, you will be regarded as dishonest.

Meanwhile, as a corollary of [2] above, it is time to address:

[4] Learn what scientists ACTUALLY postulate, not what you think they postulate, or have been told that they postulate by duplicitous apologetics websites.

This dovetails nicely with [3] above (because creationists always assume they know better what scientists postulate than the scientists themselves), and also dovetails to varying degrees with [6], [9], [10], [11], [12] and [13] below. If creationists really want to critique the theory of evolution, then they had better start learning what that theory actually postulates, as opposed to the farcical strawman caricatures thereof erected by authors of duplicitous apologetics. If you cannot be bothered to exercise this basic level of intellectual effort, then don't be surprised if people treat your attempts to erect 3,000 year old mythology, written by ignorant Bronze Age nomads, as being purportedly "superior" to the work of Nobel Laureates, with the scorn and derision such attempts deserve.

[5] Learn the distinction between proof and evidential support.

This is something that supernaturalists never tire of failing to understand, so once and for all, I shall present the distinction here.

Proof is a formal procedure in pure mathematics, and only applicable to that discipline. Proof consists of applying, in an error-free manner, well-defined rules of inference to the axioms of a given mathematical system in order to produce theorems, and thence recursively to those theorems to produce more theorems.

Evidential support consists of providing empirical demonstrations that a given set of postulates is in accord with observational reality. This is the process that is used in the physical sciences in order to build scientific theories. Postulates that are NOT in accord with observational reality are, as stated in [2] above, discarded.

As in [4] above, if you cannot exercise the basic level of intellectual effort required to learn this simple distinction, or worse still, erect fatuous nonsense about "proving" a scientific theory (especially if "prove" is mis-spelt with two 'o's), then expect your posts to be treated as a free fire zone for scathing and withering derision.

[6] Scientific theories are NOT "guesses".

This is a favourite (and wholly duplicitous) canard beloved of creationists, and relies upon the fact that in everyday usage, English words are loaded with a multiplicity of meanings. This is NOT the case in science, where terms used are precisely defined. The precise definition apposite here is the definition of theory. In science, a theory is an integrated explanation for a class of real world observational phenomena of interest, that has been subjected to direct empirical test with respect to its correspondence with observational reality, and which has been found, via such testing, to be in accord with observational reality. It is precisely because scientific theories have been subject to direct empirical test, and have passed said empirical test, that they ARE theories, and consequently enjoy a high status in the world of scientific discourse. As a consequence of the above, anyone who erects the "it's only a theory" canard with respect to evolution will be regarded with well deserved scorn and derision.

[7] The operation of natural processes, and the intellectual labour required to learn about those processes, are two separate entities.

That I have to address this explicitly, and deal with this particular canard, after it had been repeatedly erected by one particular creationist here, after he had been repeatedly schooled upon this, really does make one wonder if some of the people purporting to be in a position to critique valid scientific theories, have ever attended a real science class in their lives, let alone paid attention therein.

Let's knock this particular nonsense on the head once and for all. Just because scientists perform experiments, for the express purpose of determining how a particular natural process operates, and the details of whatever quantitative laws that process obeys, does NOT in any way, shape or form, support "intelligence" at work within those processes. The only "intelligence" in operation here is that of the scientists trying to learn about the natural process under investigation. In order to demonstrate the fatuousness of the converse view, consider gravity. This is a regularly observed real world phenomenon, and, as real world phenomena go, is about as mindless as one can imagine. The idea that "intelligence" is at work when something falls off a cliff is asinine to put it mildly. Now, in order to deduce the quantitative relationships at work when gravity acts upon objects, scientists can perform various experiments, to determine, for example, the speed of impact with which objects strike the ground when dropped from tall structures of varying heights. That they have to do this in order to deduce these quantitative details, and derive the requisite laws operating within the world of gravitational phenomena, does NOT in any way support the idea that "intelligence" is operating within that natural phenomenon itself. Indeed, applied mathematicians can postulate the existence of all manner of alternative forces, obeying different quantitative laws, and determine what would be observed if ever instances of those forces were observed in the real world, but again, this does NOT support for one moment the idea that those forces are innately "intelligent". So those who try to erect this nonsense with respect to experiments in evolutionary biology, or abiogenesis, will again invite much ridicule and laughter.

For those who really want ramming home how absurd this canard is, the online satirical magazine The Onion has published this hilarious piece on "intelligent falling". Anyone who reads this without laughing, and regards the content as a serious exposition of scientific thinking, is in dire need of an education.

As a corollary of the above, I am also required, courtesy of the same creationist who was unable to distinguish between the two, to address this:

[8] Real world observational phenomena, and the theories erected to explain them, are two different entities.

Again, the mere fact that I have to state this explicitly testifies to the scientific ignorance of many of the individuals who come here, purporting to be in a position to tell us that the world's most educated scientists have all got it wrong, and that 3,000 year old mythology has somehow got it right (or 1,400 year old mythology, depending upon your particular religious ideological background).

With respect to evolution, populations of real living organisms have been observed evolving in real time. This is what is meant when the critical thinkers here state that evolution is an observed fact. Real populations of real living organisms have been observed changing over time, and have been documented doing so in the peer reviewed scientific literature. The theory of evolution consists of the postulates erected, and the testable mechanisms arising from those postulates, to explain those observed phenomena. Learn this distinction, or once again, prepare to face much contempt from the critical thinkers here.

This brings me on neatly to:

[9] The infamous "chance" and "random" canards.

Few things are more calculated to result in the critical thinkers here regarding a poster as a zero-IQ tosspot with blancmange for brains, than the erection of the "chance" canard. Usually taking the form of "scientists think life arose by chance". This is, not to put too fine a point upon it, bullshit.

What scientists actually postulate, and they postulate this with respect to every observable phenomenon in the universe, is that well defined and testable mechanisms are responsible. Mechanisms that are amenable to empirical test and understanding, and in many cases, amenable to the development of a quantitative theory. Two such quantitative theories, namely general relativity and quantum electrodynamics, are in accord with observational reality to fifteen decimal places. As an aside, when someone can point to an instance of mythology producing something this useful, the critical thinkers will sit up and take notice, and not before.

Likewise, erecting statements such as "random mutation can't produce X", where X is some complex feature of multicellular eukaryote organisms, will also invite much scorn, derision and contempt. First of all, drop the specious apologetic bullshit that "random" means "without rhyme or reason", because it doesn't. In rigorous scientific parlance, "random", with respect to mutations, means "we have insufficient information about the actual process that took place at the requisite time". This is because scientists have known for decades, once again, that mutations arise from well defined natural processes, and indeed, any decent textbook on the subject should list several of these, given that the Wikipedia page on mutations covers the topic in considerable depth. Go here, scroll down to the text "Induced mutations on the molecular level can be caused by:", and read on from that point. When you have done this, and you have learned that scientists have classified a number of well defined chemical reactions leading to mutations, you will be in a position to understand why the critical thinkers here regard the creationist use of "random" to mean "duh, it just happened" with particularly withering disdain. When scientists speak of "random" mutations, what they really mean is "one of these processes took place, but we don't have the detailed observational data to determine which of these processes took place, when it took place, and at what point it took place, in this particular instance. Though of course, anyone with a decent background in research genetics can back-track to an ancestral state for the gene in question. Indeed, as several scientific papers in the literature testify eloquently, resurrecting ancient genes is now a routine part of genetics research.

[10]Specious and asinine creationist "probability" calculations.

I've already dealt at length with this in this thread. Don't bother posting copy-paste bullshit from Stephen Meyer or other creationist blowhards from the Discovery Institute or AiG with respect to this, because what they have disseminated IS bullshit. So-called "probability" calculations erected by creationists are based upon assumptions that are either [1] never stated so as to avoid having their validity subject to critical scrutiny, or [2] when those assumptions are stated, they are found to be based upon well known fallacies. The link above addresses two of those fallacies in some detail, namely the serial trials fallacy and the "one true sequence" fallacy. If you post bullshit about "probability" supposedly "refuting" evolution or abiogenesis, virtually all of which arises from the same tired, previously debunked sources, then you will simply be setting yourself up as a target for well deserved ridicule.

[11] The tiresome conflation of evolutionary theory with abiogenesis.

A favourite one, this, among the creationists who come here. Which always results in the critical thinkers going into petunias mode (read Douglas Adams in order to understand that reference). Since so many creationists are woefully ill-educated in this area, I shall now correct that deficit in their learning.

Evolutionary theory is a theory arising from biology, and its remit consists of explaining the observed diversity of the biosphere once living organisms exist. The origin of life is a separate question, and one which is covered by the theory of naturalistic abiogenesis, which is a theory arising from a different scientific discipline, namely organic chemistry. Learn this distinction before posting, otherwise you will simply be regarded as ignorant and ill-educated.

As a corollary of the above, it is time to deal with:

[12] The Pasteur canard.

We have had several people erecting this canard here, and it usually takes the form of the erection of the statement "life does not come from non-life", usually with a badly cited reference to the work of Louis Pasteur. This particular piece of duplicitous apologetics, apart from being duplicitous, is also fatuous. The reason being that Louis Pasteur erected his "Law of Biogenesis" specifically for the purpose of refuting the mediaeval notion of spontaneous generation, a ridiculous notion which claimed that fully formed multicellular eukaryote organisms arose directly from dust or some similar inanimate medium. First, the modern theory of abiogenesis did not exist when Pasteur erected this law; second, the modern theory of abiogenesis does not postulate the sort of nonsense that abounded in mediaeval times (and which, incidentally, was accepted by supernaturalists in that era); and third, as a methodologically rigorous empiricist, Pasteur would wholeheartedly accept the large quantity of evidence provided by modern abiogenesis researchers if he were still alive.

[13] The asinine preoccupation with "monkeys".

This is a particularly tiresome creationist fetish, and again, merely points to the scientific ignorance of those who erect it. I point everyone to [4] above, and in this particular instance, remind those wishing to post here hat what science actually postulates with respect to human ancestry is that we share a common ancestor with other great apes. Indeed, Linnaeus decided that we were sufficiently closely related to chimpanzees, on the basis of comparative anatomy alone, to warrant placing humans and chimpanzees in the same taxonomic Genus, and he decided this back in 1747, no less than SIXTY TWO YEARS before Darwin was born. You can read the original letter Linnaeus wrote to fellow taxonomist Johann Georg Gmelin, dated 27th February 1747, lamenting the fact that he was being forced to alter his science to fit religious presuppositions by bishops, here in the original Latin. So if you wish to indulge your monkey fetish, go to the zoo and do it there, and allow us the light relief of hearing about your coming to the attention of law enforcement when you do.

[14] The "no transitional forms" canard.

In order to deal with this one, I have the following to ask. Namely:

[1] Have you ever studied comparative anatomy in detail, at a proper, accredited academic institution?

[2] Do you understand rigorously what is meant by "species"?

[3] Do you understand even the basics of inheritance and population genetics?

[4] Do you understand the basics of the workings of meiosis?

If you cannot answer "yes" to all four of the above, then you are in no position to erect this canard. And, canard it is, as anyone with a proper understanding of the dynamic nature of species will readily understand, a topic I have posted at length on in the past. Indeed, you only have to ask yourself the following question, "Am I identical to either of my parents?" in order to alight quickly upon why this canard IS a canard. Your own family photo album supplies you with the answer here. YOU are a "transitional form" between your parents and your offspring, should you have any offspring.

[15] The "evolutionist" canard (with "Darwinist" side salad).

Now, if there is one guaranteed way for a creationist to establish that he or she is here for no other reason than to propagandise for a doctrine, it's the deployment of that most viscerally hated of words in the lexicon, namely, evolutionist. I have posted about this so often here, that I was surprised to find that I'd missed it out of the original list, but I had more pressing concerns to attend to when compiling the list originally. However, having been reminded of it, now is the time to nail this one to the ground with a stake through its heart once and for all.

There is no such thing as an "evolutionist". Why do I say this? Simple. Because the word has become thoroughly debased through creationist abuse thereof, and in my view, deserves to be struck from the language forever. For those who need the requisite education, there exist evolutionary biologists, namely the scientific professionals who devote decades of their lives to understanding the biosphere and conducting research into appropriate biological phenomena, and those outside that specialist professional remit who accept the reality-based, evidence-based case that they present in their peer reviewed scientific papers for their postulates. The word "evolutionist" is a discoursive elision, erected by creationists for a very specific and utterly mendacious purpose, namely to suggest that valid evolutionary science is a "doctrine", and that those who accept its postulates do so merely as a priori "assumptions" (see [3] above). This is manifestly false, as anyone who has actually read the peer reviewed scientific literature is eminently well placed to understand. The idea that there exists some sort of "symmetry" between valid, evidence-based, reality-based science (evolutionary biology) and assertion-laden, mythology-based doctrine (creationism) is FALSE. Evolutionary biology, like every other branch of science, tests assertions and presuppositions to destruction, which is why creationism was tossed into the bin 150 years ago (see [2] above). When creationists can provide methodologically rigorous empirical tests of their assertions, the critical thinkers will sit up and take notice.

Furthermore, with respect to this canard, does the acceptance of the scientifically educated individuals on this board, of the current scientific paradigm for gravity make them "gravitationists"? Does their acceptance of the evidence supporting the germ theory of disease make them "microbists"? Does their acceptance of the validity of Maxwell's Equations make them "electromagnetists"? Does their acceptance of of the validity of the work of Planck, Bohr, Schrà¶dinger, Dirac and a dozen others in the relevant field make them "quantumists"? Does their acceptance of the validity of the astrophysical model for star formation and the processes that take place inside stars make them "stellarists"? If you are unable to see the absurdity inherent in this, then you are in no position to tell people here that professional scientists have got it wrong, whilst ignorant Bronze Age nomads writing mythology 3,000 years ago got it right.

While we're at it, let's deal with the duplicitous side salad known as "Darwinist". The critical thinkers here know why this particular discoursive elision is erected, and the reason is related to the above. Basically, "Darwinist" is erected for the specific purpose of suggesting that the only reason people accept evolution is because they bow uncritically to Darwin as an authority figure. This is, not to put too fine a point on it, droolingly encephalitic drivel of a particularly suppurating order. Let's provide a much needed education once and for all here.

Darwin is regarded as historically important because he founded the scientific discipline of evolutionary biology, and in the process, converted biology from a cataloguing exercise into a proper empirical science. The reason Darwin is considered important is NOT because he is regarded uncritically as an "authority figure" - the critical thinkers leave this sort of starry-eyed gazing to followers of the likes of William Lane Craig. Darwin is regarded as important because he was the first person to pay serious attention to reality with respect to the biosphere, with respect to the business of determining mechanisms for its development, and the first to engage in diligent intellectual labour for the purpose of establishing that reality supported his postulates with respect to the biosphere. In other words, instead of sitting around accepting uncritically mythological blind assertion, he got off his arse, rolled up his sleeves, did the hard work, put in the long hours performing the research and gathering the real world data, and then spending long hours determining what would falsify his ideas and determining in a rigorous manner that no such falsification existed. For those who are unaware of this, the requisite labour swallowed up twenty years of his life, which is par for the course for a scientist introducing a new paradigm to the world. THAT is why he is regarded as important, because he expended colossal amounts of labour ensuring that REALITY supported his ideas. That's the ONLY reason ANY scientist acquires a reputation for being a towering contributor to the field, because said scientist toils unceasingly for many years, in some cases whole decades, ensuring that his ideas are supported by reality in a methodologically rigorous fashion.

Additionally, just in case this idea hasn't crossed the mind of any creationist posting here, evolutionary biology has moved on in the 150 years since Darwin, and whilst his historical role is rightly recognised, the critical thinkers have also recognised that more recent developments have taken place that would leave Darwin's eyes out on stalks if he were around to see them. The contributors to the field after Darwin are numerous, and include individuals who contributed to the development of other branches of science making advances in evolutionary theory possible. Individuals such as Ronald Fisher, who developed the mathematical tools required to make sense of vast swathes of biological data (heard of analysis of variance? Fisher invented it), or Theodosius Dobzhansky, who combined theoretical imagination with empirical rigour, and who, amongst other developments, provided science with a documented instance of speciation in the laboratory. Other seminal contributors included Mà¼ller (who trashed Behe's nonsense six decades before Behe was born), E. O. Wilson, Ernst Mayr, Motoo Kimura, Stephen Jay Gould, Niles Eldredge, J. B. S. Haldane, Richard Lewontin, Sewall Wright, Jerry Coyne, Carl Woese, Kenneth Miller, and they're just the ones I can list off the top of my head. Pick up any half-decent collection of scientific papers from the past 100 years, and dozens more names can be added to that list.

So, anyone who wants to be regarded as an extremely low-grade chew toy here only has to erect the "evolutionist" or "Darwinist" canard, and they will guarantee this end result.

[16] The "evolution is a belief" nonsense.

At this point, it should be sufficient for me to point to [2], [4] and [6] above, and tell those entertaining this fatuous idea to go and learn something. However, I suspect that the attention span of the typical creationist is such that a reminder is needed at this point. And that reminder is now forthcoming.

When scientists provide hard evidence supporting their postulates, in the form of direct empirical tests of the validity of those postulates, "belief" is superfluous to requirements and irrelevant. This has happened time and time and time again in evolutionary biology, and once more, if you can't be bothered to read the actual scientific papers in question in order to learn this, then you are in no position to critique a theory that has been subject to more thorough critical scrutiny than you can even imagine is possible. Oh, and as an indication of the size of the task ahead of you, if you think you're hard enough to dismiss the scientific evidence on a case by case basis, you have over a million scientific papers to peruse that have been published in the past 150 years. Be advised that tossing one paper into the bin isn't enough, you have to toss ALL of them into the bin. Good luck on that one.

Just in case this hasn't registered here, the critical thinkers regard belief itself as intellectually invalid. If you have to ask why, then again, you are in need of an education, and badly.

As a corollary of the above, I now turn my attention to:

[17] "You only believe in evolution because you hate god".

Anyone posting this particular piece of drivel, and make no mistake, it IS drivel, is quite frankly beneath deserving of a point of view. Erectors of this sub-amoeboid, cretinous, verminous, pestilential and thoroughly decerebrate cortical faeces are not considered to be worth the small amount of effort required to treat them with utter disdain, let alone the greater effort required to subject them to actual contempt.

Aside from the fact that I have dealt with the "belief" bullshit in [16] above, and aside from the fact that I've dealt with the complete failure of supernaturalists to provide any evidence for their pet magic man back in [1] above (yes, you need a proper attention span if you're going to engage in debate here), and as a corollary of this latter point, we'd like to know how one can "hate" an entity whose very existence has only ever been supported by vacuous apologetics instead of genuine evidence, this particular favourite meme of creationists is singularly retarded because it misses the whole point by several thousand light years. Allow me to remind you all once again, first that the critical thinkers do not regard "belief" as intellectually valid full stop, and that the critical thinkers accept the validity of evolution because REALITY supports it. THAT is what counts here, because it is what counts in professional scientific circles. You can whinge, moan, bitch and bleat all you like with respect to this moronic canard, but be advised that people who paid attention in classes at school regard this canard as one of the most utterly spastic pieces of apologetics in existence, and given the fulminating level of stupidity that has emanated from apologetics over the years, this makes the above canard rather special.

By now, those who have been paying attention know what's coming next. So, if you haven't been paying attention, you're in for a shock.

Time and time again, we see creationists turning up, posting a one-line post consisting of a link to some worthless apologetics website, thinking that they're going to "stick it to the stoopid atheists". Aside from the fact that this is terminally lazy, and merely demonstrates that the poster couldn't be bothered to present the "arguments" contained in said link using original prose of his or her own devising (which requires one to have actually bothered to read the apologetics in question, which a surprisingly large number of link spammers never do), the fatuousness of this approach should become evident very quickly upon asking the following question. If you are told that you have been diagnosed with a brain tumour, who are you going to ask to remove it? Are you going to ask a professional neurosurgeon, who has trained for years specifically to perform this operation, or are you going to ask a football coach?

If that question seems inane to you, then it is MEANT to seem inane. Specifically for the purpose of bringing into sharp relief the inanity involved in pointing to an apologetics website as a purported source of "scientific" knowledge, as opposed to pointing to the website of, say, an actual university evolutionary biology department, or the website of an actual evolutionary biologist, or the website of a scientific journal that publishes papers in this field. If you think some wank-break televangelist in a $5,000 suit paid for by gullible rubes is somehow an "expert" in the field, then once again, you really are in need of an education. Which of course brings us back to [2] above.

Let's get this straight once and for all. Websites devoted to religious apologetics are worthless as sources of genuine scientific information. If you want real scientific information, you go to a professional scientist, a professional scientific body, or a professional scientific journal. This is why science textbooks are written by actual scientists. Because, in case you hadn't worked this out, these are the people who know, and who are paid to know. I don't care how many people purportedly possessing Ph.Ds are cited by your favourite apologetics website, this is irrelevant, because the mere fact that those people are contributing to that website means that they are NOT practising real science, they are practising apologetics, which again brings us back to [2] above. Which means that the likes of AiG, ICR, the Discovery Institute and the various other organisations that act as ideological stormtroopers for mythology-based doctrine are worthless from the standpoint of disseminating genuine scientific information, because their primary interest is apologetics. Their primary interest is propagandising for mythology. As a consequence, these websites frequently misrepresent valid science (again, see [2] above). Indeed, several of them peddle outright lies about science (see [3] above, where I provide a handy link to the destruction of one instance of said lies). Consequently, if you come here linking to one of these organisations, the response from the critical thinkers here will be to go into petunias mode (again, see Douglas Adams for the reference).

Whilst we're here, I might as well address the related argument by copy-paste screed canard, which fits in here too. Copying and pasting a large wall of text from an apologetics website, dumping it here in the same manner in which an incontinent baby dumps the contents of its nappies on the floor, then running off thinking that you have somehow "refuted" valid science, merely earns you our lasting scorn and derision. Even more so if there is a stark contrast between the literacy level of the copy-paste screed, and that of posts containing your own words. If you are unable to spell words of more than five letters correctly when writing your own posts, and unable to post more than, say, 15 words in such posts, then suddenly unleash a wall of text upon us, the critical thinkers will know what they're dealing with, and the resulting savaging that your posts will receive will not be pretty to watch. Picture the spectacle that would result if you slashed a baby with a Stanley knife, then tossed it into a piranha infested river. That's what will happen to your posts.

The same spectacle will result if you post a link to, or embed, a crap YouTube video. If we see John Pendelton, Kent Hovind or any of the other well-known charlatans appearing, or for that matter any of the well-known wannabees, popping up in the video clip, other than for the purpose of having their execrable ignorance, stupidity and wilful dishonesty eviscerated, then your post gets the piranha treatment.

[19] The tiresome "design" argument.

Let's get this straight here. This is nothing more than the resurrection of the Paley's watchmaker zombie, which stinks even more after 150 years of rotting in the grave than it did when Paley first erected it. Aside from the fact that this argument fails spectacularly because artefacts arising from known manufacturing processes are qualitatively different from the rest of the world, and said artefacts are not self-replicating entities, the entire "design" argument fails for one very important reason. Propagandists for mythology have never presented a proper, rigorous means of testing for "design", and for that matter, don't even understand what is needed in order to provide genuine evidence for "design". The fatuous "it looks designed to me, therefore my magic man did it" argument will, once again, receive the piranha treatment if you make the mistake of deploying it here (see [1] above). Make no mistake, this is nothing more than the typical supernaturalist elevation of ignorance to the level of a metaphysic. The "design" argument consists of nothing more than "I can't imagine how a natural process could have achieved X, therefore no natural process could have achieved X, therefore magic man did it". Learn once and for all that reality is not only under no obligation whatsoever to pander to this sort of ignorance and wishful thinking, all too frequently, it sticks the middle finger to said ignorance and wishful thinking.

Now, I'm going to be kind here, and explain what is needed, in order to have genuine evidence for "design". You need ALL of the following four criteria satisfied, namely:

[19.2] That the methodology cited in [19.1] above has been tested upon entities of known provenance, and found to be reliable via said direct empirical test;

[19.3] That the methodology cited in [19.1] above, and determined to be reliable in [19.2] above, is accompanied by a rigorous demonstration of its applicability to specific classes of entity of interest;

[19.4] That the methodology cited in [19.1] above, determined to be reliable in [19.2] above, and determined to be applicable to the requisite class of entities in [19.3] above, yields an unambiguous answer of "designed" for the entities to which it is applied.

Unless you have ALL FOUR of the above criteria fulfilled, you have NO evidence for "design". Don't even bother trying to claim otherwise until you've spent at least a decade or so devising the rigorous and robust methodology specified as an essential requirement in [19.1] above, because the critical thinkers will know you're lying. To give you an idea of the magnitude of the task at hand, just fulfilling [19.1] above would constitute a major scientific achievement, and by the time you got to [19.3], you would be in Nobel-winning territory. That is, of course, if you fulfilled [19.1] to [19.3] above properly. If you ever made it to [19.4], your name would be indelibly stamped upon history. The idea that some random poster on the Internet is going to achieve this with nothing more than blind acceptance of mythological assertion to guide him is, needless to say, regarded here as a complete non-starter.

[20] Teleology/ethics redux.

First, in response to recent posting activity, I'd like to cover the matter of teleology. Which is defined as 'the doctrine of final purpose'. Basically, teleology erects the assertion (hand in hand with supernaturalism) that the universe and its contents are subject to an externally applied overarching 'purpose'. This is merely another example of the pervasiveness of the human tendency to project our own intentionality upon our surroundings, a process that our species applied from prehistoric times onwards. The operation thereof is very simple. Humans are beings who think about their actions (well, at least some of us are), and who frequently engage in activities with a specific end goal in mind. As a consequence, when our prehistoric ancestors saw natural forces at work, and saw that those natural forces shaped the landscape (and their own populations), they considered it entirely natural to conclude that this was the work of some entity similar to themselves, namely an entity with internally generated thoughts and goals, acting to achieve those goals. Basically, our prehistoric ancestors fabricated invisible magic men of various species because they didn't know any better, and in the absence of substantive scientific knowledge, doing so was the only way that they could make sense of a complex, dynamic world. It would take our species a good 200,000 years to reach the point where we could make sense of the world in a proper, rigorous, quantitative manner without erecting such fabrications, and thus, said mythological fabrications have enjoyed far more persistence and persuasiveness than their complete absence of genuine explanatory power warrants.

Teleology is merely an extension of this. Because we have end goals and act to achieve those end goals in the real world, our ancestors assumed that the events around them arising from natural forces had a like origin, and that some sentient intent and planning lay behind them. However, this is merely another of those presuppositions that, in the fullness of time, was found severely wanting when subject to proper, intense critical scientific test. NO evidence has EVER arisen supporting the idea of an externally applied teleology governing the universe and its contents, indeed, with several physical systems, the idea that this is even possible looks decidedly nonsensical, in the light of the fact that those systems are best represented by systems of equations that are highly nonlinear, exhibit extreme sensitivity to initial conditions, and wildly bifurcating behaviour. There is an entire branch of mathematics devoted to the study of such systems, namely the mathematics of chaotic dynamical systems, and even relatively simple, supposedly deterministic systems of equations have been demonstrated to exhibit wide variance in behaviour with only tiny changes in initial conditions. The Verhulst Equation that is used to model population dynamics is a prime example - even small changes in the fecundity parameter in this equation will lead, once the equation enters the bifurcating régime, in wildly different outcomes even if one starts with the same initial conditions. Indeed, once that equation enters the chaotic régime, our ability to predict future behaviour of the system is severely truncated.

Now, if a simple ordinary differential equation can manifest this diversity of behaviour, it doesn't take much imagining, at least amongst those who paid attention in the requisite classes, to realise that a physical system such as the weather, which is best modelled using the Navier-Stokes Equations among others, is not going to be in any sense 'directable', no matter what delusions of grandeur any sentient entity has with respect to this. The Navier-Stokes Equations are not only highly nonlinear interlinked partial differential equations (and in the most general case, tensor differential equations to boot, involving at least one second order tensor quantity), but have proven to be so intractable to attack by mathematicians, that the very existence of a general analytical solution to them remains unknown, despite a century or more of intense labour by the world's best mathematicians to answer this question. Indeed, anyone who succeeds in this endeavour will win themselves a $1 million prize courtesy of the Clay Mathematical Institute, and immediately find themselves receiving lucrative job offers from aerospace companies such as Boeing to come and help them streamline their supercomputer models of fluid flow. At the moment, Navier-Stokes turbulent flow modelling requires expensive teams of top-class mathematicians, computer scientists, and a $50 million supercomputer as baseline pre-requisites, and those operating in this field will readily tell you that there are limits to how far in future time one can push the models, particularly those using these tools for weather modelling. The idea that the behaviour of a physical system, governed by equations of this sort, is 'directable' by any sentience will result in considerable mirth amongst those who know. So if you think your magic man is capable of imposing an overarching teleology upon the universe and its contents, and micro-managing the entire show, those two gentlemen called Navier and Stokes flushed that presupposition down the toilet over 100 years ago.

As a corollary, if there is hard evidence from 300 years of continued scientific endeavour, that an externally applied overarching teleology is not only conspicuous by its absence, but wholly absurd in the light of the divergent behaviour of key physical systems (and that's before we enter the world of quantum indeterminacy), then likewise, the idea that there exists one, single, overarching set of ethical precepts applied externally to the universe from the same source, a set of precepts that remains unconditionally valid for all time, is similarly ludicrous. Nietzsche castigated philosophers who erected grand, assertion-laden metaphysical systems for the purpose of imposing their pet ethics upon the universe even without the benefit of the latest scientific knowledge, and recognised the basic fallacy underlying this exercise. Modern physics simply propels the fallacy into the realms of Pythonesque absurdity. Apart from the cosmic level of anthropocentric conceit required to erect the notion, that the affairs of one small collection of primates on one small planet, orbiting an average star situated in a nondescript galaxy, are the central reason for the universe being here, there is the central absurdity involved in imposing an overarching set of ethical precepts upon a universe in which the supposedly central characters don't put in an appearance for over 13 billion years. The monumental metaphysical profligacy this assumes would make William of Ockham barf.

This brings us on to the corollary canard ...

[21] "The universe is meaningless without my magic man"

To which the short answer is "so fucking what?"

Leaving aside for the moment the total failure of supernaturalists to support the assertion that their particular pet species of magic man actually exists, which also impinges upon [20] above, the idea that the universe needs this entity to impose meaning upon it is a piece of intellectual constipation that I, for one, find mind-numbingly boring, tedious and unimaginative. Douglas Adams said it best - "Isn't it enough to realise that the garden is beautiful as it is, without having to imagine fairies at the bottom of it?"

Likewise, why should the universe be required to genuflect before supernaturalist anthropocentric conceit, and be required to be meaningful only because an invisible magic man that we have invented decrees thus?

We are beings that are capable of eliciting meaning for our own lives, and the world around us, without outside interference. Erecting an imaginary source of outside interference is nothing more than a gargantuan Little Orphan Annie complex, a wish to remain a child with a nice Daddy figure to run the world around us so that we don't have to get off our arses and expend the effort. This is such an utterly lame stance to adopt. It's indolent, naive, simplistic and dumb. Surely there is far more majesty in knowing that the universe, quixotic and capricious though it may seem to be at first sight, is comprehensible by diligent intellectual human effort, and that exercising that effort not only leads to a breathtaking vista of understanding that adds to the majesty, but gives us the power to work toward a better destiny for us all in a manner that produces real, substantive results? Once again, the evidence we have is that fabricated magic men are superfluous to requirements and irrelevant in this vein, and indeed, are increasingly a hindrance. "Magic man did it", once again, is little more than a synonym for "don't bother asking questions, don't bother being curious, don't bother trying to learn". What gives meaning to the world around us is the effort we exert to understand the world and put that knowledge to constructive use.

I think this will suffice for an introductory post to this thread. I shall be seeking to have the thread made a sticky once it is launched, and additional canards will be added to this as and when I have time to devote to them.

Laurens wrote:I think the best advice one could give to creationists was first said by Bob Dylan:

"Don't criticise what you can't understand"

I have just started teaching religious studies at A-level and one of our topics is "intelligent" design. I am really flabbergasted by the arguments the class has.

Here are some examples;

"Darwin said we evolved from a Monkey""Natural selection is true but evolution isn't""Evolution cannot say how the Universe started""It can't all have happened just by accident".

Amazing. I really thought that when Dawkins talked to creationists they were extreme versions, you know, that he picked on certain people to make his point, but wow. If it wasn't so sad I think I would laugh.

Laurens wrote:I think the best advice one could give to creationists was first said by Bob Dylan:

"Don't criticise what you can't understand"

I have just started teaching religious studies at A-level and one of our topics is "intelligent" design. I am really flabbergasted by the arguments the class has.

Here are some examples;

"Darwin said we evolved from a Monkey""Natural selection is true but evolution isn't""Evolution cannot say how the Universe started""It can't all have happened just by accident".

Amazing. I really thought that when Dawkins talked to creationists they were extreme versions, you know, that he picked on certain people to make his point, but wow. If it wasn't so sad I think I would laugh.

I have just started teaching religious studies at A-level and one of our topics is "intelligent" design. I am really flabbergasted by the arguments the class has.

Here are some examples;

"Darwin said we evolved from a Monkey""Natural selection is true but evolution isn't""Evolution cannot say how the Universe started""It can't all have happened just by accident".

Amazing. I really thought that when Dawkins talked to creationists they were extreme versions, you know, that he picked on certain people to make his point, but wow. If it wasn't so sad I think I would laugh.[/quote]

Yikes! So how old are these students?

And... what did you tell them?[/quote]

16!!! They are 16! I was shocked, so shocked I forgot I was a teacher and instead could be said to have "gone off on one".

In order I said:

NO! Darwin did not say that and even if he did it wouldn't make one bit of difference. We share ancestors with Chimpanzees which are our closest living relative. They are our closest cousins. We are slightly more distantly related to Gorillas and slightly more distant from Monkies and so on. You know what it's like to have a cousin, well it would be wrong to say your cousin gave birth to you. Instead you are related not by your parents but by your grand parents. Imagine that on a scale spanning back millions of years, it's the same principle.

I literally have no idea how to answer that. Natural selection is the principle that drives evolution. Evolution is the fact and Natural selection is the best model we have for explaining why evolution occurs.

No it can't, but then it never said it could.

It didn't. Natural selection acts on variations in the gene pool. When a gene is expressed such as a longer neck perhaps, natural selection either favours that or it doesn't survive. In Giraffes, their long necks are used to fighting, however, there has to a balance with drinking water on the ground. This means that longer necks won't always be favoured because they become more vunerable when lowering their heads to take a drink, if this is the case, the even longer neck probably won't survive as drinking water will become too difficult.

Or something like that anyway. I waffled a lot but I mainly sticked to that kind of stuff.

Or something like that anyway. I waffled a lot but I mainly sticked to that kind of stuff.

Good responses. Were there any reactions to your responses?

And well, 16... could be worse. Could be grownups who were fully set in their ways (and their ignorance).

You're right, 16 isn't too bad. I think what scared me most was that they thought there was literally no answers to those kind of questions. If they just had no idea or had never heard of evolution I may have been happier I think.

The reaction???.....well, mixed. It was me, who they had never met before, against their parents. It was a tough competition. My hope is that at least they went and looked these things up. I don't really want them to take my word for it, rather just give them the curiosity to look into it.

Everything you know seems far more important and interesting when you have figured it out for yourself.

Frenger wrote:Everything you know seems far more important and interesting when you have figured it out for yourself.

I agree, and this is what makes me a passionate anti-creationist (I'm far more anti-creationist than I am anti-religion). I get almost enraged to think that people are having their desire to learn and figure things out for themselves stifled by ignorant morons who have no clue what they're talking about. The amount of people who are discouraged from pursuing truth in favour of easy 'God did it' answers, and threats of damnation if they so much as question it makes me sad indeed.

Evolution is fucking interesting, I could happy spend my life learning about it, and it makes me sick that people want to devote their entire careers to discrediting it!

I think the argument against saying "evolutionist" mostly stems from the way creationists have used it, because as Squawk and myself will argue, in the context of debating evolution vs. creationism, it does make sense to denote the positions. The problem is that creationist will tend to use it as a blanket statement for anyone arguing against them and their arguments, which will often include cosmological/astronomical, physical, geological, chemical, theological and other arguments. With that in mine, it does not make sense to call someone an "evolutionist". And if the creationist argues that it does, because "but there is also cosmological evolution, stellar evolution, chemical evolution!!" and such, then he's spewing nonsense.

Additionally, the term is often used perjoratively, and also as denoting some kind of movement or whatever.

So context and use matters greatly.

I would agree that it can make sense to use the terms in such a way as to distinguish between the two positions in debates of this kind. And I would assume that if someone accepts cosmological evolution, stellar evolution, chemical evolution and such they also accept biological evolution, so this may not be such an issue either. My problem is that the term is usually used as a synonym for atheism, making this "movement" an enormous conspiracy to "destroy God". Meanwhile they fail to see that it is the church's own misrepresentation of scriptures and their total failure to live up to its own standards that has played a major role in driving people away from God.

Additionally, anyone who accepts any part of the theory of evolution is lumped into this category - evolutionist / atheist - and thrown under the bus. The only way to not fall into this category is to have 90% of your frontal lobe removed so that you cannot think logically about anything.

So, as Gnug pointed out, its just a term that you need to understand in context, which like most other terms creationists use, is a complete misrepresentation of reality.

HBD

Ignorance is a most formidable opponent rivaled only by arrogance; but when the two join forces, one is all but invincible.

Nothing is easier than to persuade people who want to be persuaded and already believe. - Petrarca